


Truesound

by aejrogota



Category: Final Fantasy VIII, Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Road Trip, Cleigne, Crossover, Dialogue-Driven, Duscae, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Light Angst, One Shot, Post-Canon, Slice of Life, Squall's POV, Taelpar Crag (Final Fantasy XV), Tourism, a number of years after Ultimecia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-14
Updated: 2021-01-14
Packaged: 2021-03-12 08:02:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28757046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aejrogota/pseuds/aejrogota
Summary: Rinoa and Squall go for a long road trip across Lucis. As they take in the sights, they reflect on their love for each other and how it has changed them over the years since their fateful first meeting.
Relationships: Rinoa Heartilly/Squall Leonhart
Comments: 3
Kudos: 10





	Truesound

**Author's Note:**

> This might just be the pandemic getting to me, but I’ve been reminiscing a lot about these kinds of tender moments-in-travel lately. No better way to vent it than through the richness of the FFXV universe and one of my favorite FF pairings.

Squall absent-mindedly rubbed the steering wheel’s rim between his right thumb and index finger. Rain fell in thick sheets on the windshield and the roof of the rental car. The fullness of its cabin’s leathery scent intermingled with that of cooling brown-bagged fries that Rinoa loosely held in her lap. She slumbered in the passenger’s seat, angling her head ever so slightly, cradling it against the tautness of her seatbelt.

Rinoa’s latest playlist had run out a while ago shortly after she had fallen asleep. Since then, Squall had been listening meditatively to the muted drumming of the rainfall’s flagging bursts, and to the slick roll of rubber on wetted asphalt. Those steadier noises were interspersed by a rumbling crash of static light on the peak of the distant Disc. Every moment intensified his sense of heartwarmth as he sat in the car’s cozy cabin, fixing his eyes on the incoming road.

Squall grabbed the open bottle of blue Jetty’s they had been sharing. He knocked back the very last gulp. Its fizz rustled against the upper stretches of his throat before subsiding into a sickly sweetness.

In the earliness of the rainy mountain morning, the greenery around them became richly saturated in a lonesome earl-grey hue. Mists drifted lazily skywards from the conifer groves, obscuring their fairied hearts beneath their canopies. Far ahead of him, a coupe with Leide plates which had been with them since Galdin pumped its brakes; it was coming into a three-way intersection in the road. The car turned left at a cluster of rusted blank billboards. Squall slowed to make the turn as well, gently, measuredly, careful not to disturb his partner’s rest.

Rinoa, ever a light sleeper, woke up anyway. She let loose a soft groan in sleepy protest, shifting in vain to find the hearthy comfort which had so suddenly and rudely retreated from her. Eventually she sat upright, glancing briefly at Squall with a foggy half-smile. She reached for the Jetty’s before furrowing her brow at him.

“What?”

“It’s been like five seconds! I can’t believe you drank the whole thing.”

“It’s been five seconds to _you_. Also, I only took two sips.”

“If that was two sips then you drink like a glacial eye.”

Squall shook his head, slightly smiling at her pout.

“Whatever. I’ll get you another one at the next stop.”

“You know what? All of these fries are mine now. You don’t get to have _any_ of them.”

Rinoa curled away from him and huddled the brown bag preciously. She snuck the last few fries into her mouth, peeking over her shoulder with a smug smirk of mock vengeance. Squall masked a chuckle with a scoff.

After daubing her mouth and fingers with a napkin, Rinoa reached to the back of the car. She put her trash in a plastic bag hanging from Squall’s headrest and planted a passing kiss on the sleeve of his T-shirt. A brief silence followed as Rinoa turned her gaze out the window. She fixated on the last of Duscae’s brownstone arches as they peeked over the hillside evergreen carpet at right.

She pulled out a map of Lucis she’d picked up at a desert gas station not too long after they crossed the bridges out of the Crown City. Rinoa awkwardly unfolded it and squinted, tracing their path with her fingernail.

“You’ve been behind the wheel for a while.”

“It’s fine.”

“Well, let me know if you get tired, okay?”

Rinoa reached out with her left hand and lightly squeezed Squall’s forearm in reassurance. He nodded, his eyes fixed yet on the road.

Squall had no intention of taking her up on her offer. On long trips like these, Rinoa fixed her eyes tirelessly on the innumerable roadside sights. She would become engrossed in them with a childlike wonder, and then she would prod him with questions and speculations for how he thought things came to be. He’d only ever produce short and brusque answers for her, if he had any to offer at all. It was always more interesting for Squall to turn the same inquiries back on her. The minutes and hours would then fill with giddy pitches and singsong swells and the lovely lightness of her voice. She would leave his mind abuzz with the curious and unusual exports of her oblique reasoning. Rinoa somehow made the humdrum tedium pass more smoothly than the finest of Hasberry’s sweet dessert wines.

He cherished her for that.

Squall smiled to himself. How normal once foreign feelings had become.

Up the bend and forward for a minute and Squall found himself driving into another tunnel. The rain’s pitter-patter ceased all at once; in its place echoed softly the sound of their engine’s purr and the stuttercroak of wipers on dry glass. Rinoa, suddenly noticing the music had stopped, picked her phone up again. On the screen was a picture of Squall snuggling Angelo back at her dad’s house. She unlocked it and tabbed through her music app for another playlist, but eventually decided to settle on a local radio station.

A familiar waltz began to play. Rinoa’s smile faded a little.

“Hey, Squall?”

“Mm?”

She shifted uncomfortably.

“Um. Have you ever had your doubts?”

Squall paused. She had masked this same question to him in different words many times before, but he had not yet managed to offer her the answer she needed to hear.

Rinoa continued hesitantly.

“Like, about us?”

The sound of the wipers was suddenly distractingly loud. He turned them off as he searched his mind for the right words.

Another moment passed.

“Hey. I’m gonna let you in on a secret.”

She looked to him intently.

“You taught me to appreciate my first sunset.”

“Really?”

Rinoa slightly cocked her head in thought. She wore a smile at first but slowly it faded to a frown.

“I’m sorry, Squall. I can’t believe I’d forget something like that. When did it happen?”

“On our last cross-country trip together, actually.”

Rinoa’s eyes brightened in understanding.

“Oh. I guess that’s why I don’t remember. I basically wasn’t there.”

“You did your best.”

Rinoa smirked. She looked up at him but was surprised that it didn’t seem like he was being facetious. Yet neither did it seem like he was mocking her. After a second, she spoke back up, her voice small.

“Could you…help me relive that moment?”

He nodded.

“There is a long bridge between the two continents. FH is smack-dab in the middle. The bridge is so long that you can’t see how far it goes. It might as well have connected heaven to hell.”

Rinoa closed her eyes attentively, keen to make the place in her mind.

“It was so hard to see you in that hospital bed after we fought Matron in Galbadia Garden. You were so cold and lifeless. We found out that Ellone was in Esthar and that she might be able to do something to bring you back, so I had Nida take us to FH. Then I put you on my shoulders and back and snuck out of the Garden.”

“You just left!?”

“I’m sure Quistis and Xu would have done just fine in my stead. They wouldn’t have been happy about it, though, so I didn’t wait around to ask them.”

“And you just…carried me? The whole way?”

Squall nodded with a hum of assent.

“It was tough going, though. I walked for as long as my legs could carry me, well to the end of the day. Then I had to set you down for a while.”

He paused for a few moments.

“I rested on the edge of the bridge and noticed that the sun was just about to set. The whole sky was so orange. I still remember how warm the air was. How humid the breeze had been. And how sad I felt.”

“Oh. Why did you feel sad?”

“That was the first time I felt like a moment was lost on me because you weren’t standing by my side.”

Rinoa fixed her gaze on the glove compartment’s lacquered lid.

“I’m…sorry I keep putting you in these situations.”

Before Squall could respond, the white light at the tunnel’s end evened out as they passed through its western exit. They found themselves driving on a bridge. Around them yawned a massive chasm deeper and more impressive than anything he had ever seen. The maps had done it little justice; it was so vast that its edges could not fit within a singular field of view.

Above them, the long morning rainstorm had finally broken. God rays burned intensely through parting gaps in the clouds. They glinted upon bizarre crystalline arcs bridging the canyon. Rinoa was taken aback in awe, but her reaction seemed far too muted for Squall’s liking.

Squall had an idea.

“Hey, Rinoa? I’d like to show you something.”

“Show me something? You’ve never even been here before!”

“Just trust me.”

A smile started to form on his face.

He drove to the far side of the bridge’s landing. After a rightward curve in the road he pulled onto the shoulder and left his hazards on.

Squall reached into the backseat to grab their extra layers. He helped Rinoa into her puffy grey parka before putting on his favorite black jacket. Grabbing her by the hand, he led her along the road’s shoulder, still wet and dark from the last fresh round of rainfall. There was a spring in his gait that Rinoa had never noticed before; something about it was infectious. Soon enough they were back on the bridge’s edge, peering out over the canyon below and beyond.

“Rinoa, my life has for most of it had one purpose, and that was to be a blade at Cid’s command. I owed nothing to anyone else.”

A lone griffon broke off in sprinting flight down into the canyon’s deep. Its loud call echoed mythically from the canyon’s walls, its bright gold feathers glistening as it passed under an opening in the clouds.

“When we first came to work for you, I don’t think any of us understood why you were so invested in fighting for a place you weren’t even from. But bit by bit your reasons came together in my mind.”

“I remember not appreciating you either, at the start. I guess it only makes sense you felt the same way.”

“No, that’s not what I meant.”

Squall looked over to Rinoa and watched a small cloud of white vapor puff from her mouth. She looked up towards the brightening clouds in the sky. He continued to speak.

“We were just kids back then. There were a lot of things I hadn’t sorted out. And I pushed that onto the people closest to me, like yourself. That wasn’t me not appreciating you in particular.”

Rinoa was quiet for a second.

“So, then…what is it that you meant?”

“The first time you made me question my attitudes about the world was when I met you again in Timber.”

“Was it because I leaped into your arms?”

Rinoa flashed a cheeky grin. Squall chuckled but shook his head.

“Actually, it was the moment right before you left the room.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. You introduced me to Angelo.”

“Really! I didn’t realize she left such a strong first impression on you.”

“She did. It was the first time I was forced to ask myself why in the world someone would ever have a pet.”

“You know she is so much more than that. She is my best and my oldest friend.”

“Right. I didn’t recognize it at the time…But seeing your bond with her helped me understand how _you_ love.”

She looked to him intently.

“And how is it that I love, Squall?”

“You love others for just…being, if that makes sense. For what they are. Like they just deserve it.”

“Well, what else could love mean?”

Squall frowned and fell silent.

_(I’m not sure I knew what it meant before. Back then I was just afraid.)_

* * *

The cloud cover had thinned enough for an entirely new landmark to appear over the west horizon. A gigantic volcano emerged from behind a thousand thinning rainy veils. Silhouettes of gigantic basaltic cornices chaotically emerged from the core of its edifice. It was as if a small part of the world had been shattered by a cry. An eerie tree of red-glowing coral-like branches protruded from the peaktop. It was partly obscured behind a slight pillar of black smoke which billowed from the volcano’s caldera.

Rinoa turned to Squall, placing one mitt on his shoulder and pointing at the strange landform with her other.

“Wow! I don’t know how we missed that.”

She tugged on him lightly.

“Do you think they’ll let us get close to it?”

“When we get to the haven for lunch we’ll see what the others think, but I’m for it, if you are. I think there is a paved road that goes up there.”

“Squall! I love seeing cool stuff, but I don’t want to make you do anything you wouldn’t want to do otherwise.”

“You’re there with me. That’s what matters.”

Rinoa frowned. He hadn’t been prepared for that response.

“You know, Squall? I don’t think you answered my original question.”

He looked down with some frustration, engrossed in trepid thought. What was there that he could yet say?

He continued after a moment of silence.

“I think I did, actually. You might have had the wrong takeaway from our earlier conversation.”

“Oh.”

Rinoa shook her head.

“Squall, I’m glad you shared that with me, but it honestly didn’t sound like you appreciated that sunset at all.”

“I didn’t _enjoy_ it, no.”

A pause.

“But for the first time I really noticed a sunset in the way that you seemed to love all things.”

He turned to Rinoa somewhat uncertainly.

“You saw how I was in Timber that first time. Could you have imagined me now?”

“Yeah, actually. I could, and I did. I always knew you were somewhere…in…there.”

She bent her knees a bit and jabbed at Squall’s chest with her right mitt, an air of mischief in her smile.

“Well, I can assure you there was nothing there. Not until that moment on the bridge.”

“Don’t be silly. I’ve known that part of you ever since we _actually_ first met.”

“At my graduation?”

“Yeah! By the way, you _lied_ to me –“

She firmly tapped him on the nose with her mitt.

“ – you _always_ knew how to dance. And I don’t just mean because you learned it for espionage purposes or whatever.”

“What do you mean, then?”

“Sure, you knew how to do it, even if you were rusty at the start. But you were _really_ good at dancing with _me_.”

Rinoa paused and looked back out over the chasm below.

“Anyone can learn the right moves. But dancing well in a pair like that is…something special. It can’t be taught.”

Rinoa brushed away a strand of hair that had settled onto her face.

“There are no filters. You can’t hide the instinct behind your thoughts.”

Squall nodded slowly.

“The first time I met the _real_ you was towards the end of that dance. And I’ve never forgotten that moment. I kept it in mind every time I tried to find you again.”

Squall turned to meet her gaze.

“I feel like you might have answered your own question.”

“Hm.”

Another pause, interspersed by a racket of distant bird calls. Then Rinoa suddenly cuddled into his right arm, grasping it with both of her own, and she rested her head in the crook of his neck. She closed her eyes.

“I love you too, Squall.”

Squall silently watched the fog continue to drift through the canyon. He felt Rinoa’s chest rise and fall against his arm through the cycling depths of her evened breath. He relaxed into her presence, resting his cheek against the top of her head.


End file.
